Normally thinking is a good thing, it exercises your brain. Some people do it too much and some people don’t do it enough. I am the type of a person who does both. According to my husband I over think the things that don’t need to be over thought and I under think the things that deserve more thought. I have the ability to think myself into frustration, exhaustion, anxiety, and occasionally, illness. I can make the simplest of things complex, the easiest things difficult. I can take a minor issue and turn it into a major issue in the blink of an eye, especially when it comes to my dogs.

Take Leroy’s rock eating which recently went into overdrive last week.

Some dogs eat rocks, this I know, but why does my dog eat rocks? Is he sick? Is he bored? Is it behavioral?
Is he lacking something in his diet? Is he playing? How do I get him to stop? Rocks are everywhere, how do I get rid of them? How many times can this happen before he eats a rock that is too big to exit?

Some of these questions I still don’t have answers to, but so far here is what I do know:
Medically speaking, Leroy checks out just fine. Nutritionally speaking, it is too soon to tell. I have switched his protein and carbohydrate sources and have added in The Missing Link supplement, only time will tell.
We have picked up the rocks in our backyard, not all of them, but ones that could potentially cause an intestinal blockage, let’s say bigger than a quarter but smaller than a softball. It was suppose to be smaller than a baseball but my son said that he thought Leroy may be able to swallow a baseball and when I told him  that wasn’t physically possible he already put the image in my head so we upped the size just to be safe.
We did our best, but many rocks still remain in and under the soil and because of this Leroy is not allowed out in the backyard without a basket muzzle on.

The basket muzzle.
***insert sigh here***
The basket muzzle didn’t work out very well at first because Leroy quickly figured out that he could remove it with his paws.  However, my totally awesome husband thought of the idea to add a piece of an old collar to the top of the muzzle so it went over Leroy’s head and looped onto the muzzle. He even sewed it together himself. God, I love that man.
This new muzzle took Leroy and I a few days to get use to.
The image of my Gentle Giant being turned into an image of Hannibal Lecter completely and totally bummed me right out  to the point of tears.

This image led to my never ending question, “What if this breaks his spirit?”
“What are you going to do? Just let him eat rocks? It’s Leroy, nothing can break his spirit.” replied my husband.
Of course, he was right….as he usually is, and after two days the muzzle is no big deal to Leroy. 1 out of 5 to times he comes back in the house without it on or it is covered in mud, but for the most part the basket muzzle is doing its job and Leroy is fine with it and that makes me fine with it too.

As for walks……our walks are filled with rocks and there is nothing that I can do about that.
I have decided not to use the muzzle for walks for two reasons.
1. The least I have to use it the better. Plain and simple.
2.  I quickly learned that my right foot is faster than Leroy’s mouth and Leroy quickly learned that trying to eat a rock during our walk results in his chin meeting my foot and his chin meeting my foot can occasionally result in him biting his tongue and……..well….no one likes biting their tongue.

My conclusion:
Leroy eats rocks, he’s not the only dog that does. It’s not the end of the world. I can handle this.
The mind is an exhausting place. My mind is an exhausting place.